THIS year's 9/11 commemoration day was overshadowed by the possible building of an Islamic community centre near Ground Zero.

To protest this, some pastor threatened to burn a Qu'ran on the day. He didn't. But he got a lot of media coverage before backing down.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the centre, got a slot on Larry King Live and was met by the presence of a female anchor, Soledad O'Brien, instead of regular host Larry King.

Was this some kind of protest? Woman versus Imam! Whatever.

You have to admit though that a Jewish man and an Imam squaring off about an Islamic community centre near Ground Zero would have made for very interesting viewing.

For me, the debate about whether or not the building of this reported $100million (about R701million) Islamic community centre near Ground Zero was appropriate ended when Salman Rushdie said he did not know what the fuss was about because there was a mosque inside one of the fallen Twin Towers.

As for the pastor's potential burning of the Qu'ran, well, Rushdie had another nugget. He simply said he did not support the burning of books.

Some of the things that grabbed my attention on this day as I walked around Ground Zero were those protesting against the building of the Islamic community centre, those protesting against what is now termed "Islamaphobia" in support of the Islamic community centre and those who want the world to know that 9/11 is the result of a conspiracy.

At the tail end of this latter group of protesters was a banner so disturbing that two members of the New York police department, who, like the rest of their colleagues, are supposed to move people along and not participate in these marches, found themselves confronting the two men carrying it between them and frustrated because what these men were doing was not illegal.

The banner showed blown up pictures of people jumping to their deaths from different floors of The Twin Towers on September 11 2001, and it said "Should we all jump for Islam?"

The day had started off sombrely with the reading of the names of the fallen victims of September 11, the laying of flowers and a lot of prayers.

All these protests will pass. A coalition of the weak has never defeated a coalition of the strong.

The Islamic community centre will be built. The conspiracy theorists might keep asking their questions but they will never prove their theories. The Twin Towers will be replaced by One World Trade Centre which, at 541,32m tall, will be the tallest building in the US.